


Mutually Beneficial

by youreakite96



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies With Benefits, F/M, Friends With Benefits, but lets be real they arent friends, slight angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:40:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youreakite96/pseuds/youreakite96
Summary: Whilst living in the house in Toledo, Berlin approaches Nairobi with a proposition which he considers may be mutually beneficial.(Because I need more Berlin smut in my life)
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Nairobi | Ágata Jiménez
Comments: 95
Kudos: 186





	1. Chapter 1

“I think we should fuck.”

Nairobi sighs deeply and brings up her hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. It’s not the fist time Berlin has suggested this. 

They’re usually the last two to go to bed. The Professor excuses himself for the evening at 10pm every night, like clockwork. Helsinki and Oslo will usually retreat upstairs next, preferring to spend the evening winding down away from the rabble of the younger members of the household. Denver and Moscow liked to smoke on the upstairs balcony and reminisce about old times, making up for the years Moscow had spent in prison. Tokyo and Rio would nonchalantly leave the communal area separately, before sneaking off into one another's rooms with all the subtlety of a loaded gun. 

That usually left Berlin and Nairobi drinking together in companionable silence. Sometimes at the table outside, drinking in the cool night air, sometimes sitting around the small fireplace in the main hall, and sometimes, like tonight, sitting either end of the ratty, worn out sofa, passing a bottle of bourbon between them. 

She doesn’t know if he’s drunk, or horny, or just plain bored, but he broached the subject half dozen times already since they arrived in Toledo.

“We both have needs, why not take care of them together?” He asks, taking the bottle from her hand and catching her eye as he does. The desire behind his eyes sends a shiver down her spine. He’s an asshole, but fuck, if he gives her that look one more time she might just say yes. She gulps softly and looks back into the fire. 

“You’re drunk.” Nairobi mutters, taking a long drag on the cigarette between her fingers. 

Berlin shrugs and settles back into the couch, sipping on the bourbon and following her gaze to the fireplace. 

Usually, she would brush past his crude suggestions and change the subject, but she allows herself to glance back at him one more time. Her eyes flicker over his face, drawn to the shadows cast by his cheekbones. His eyes, unwavering as he looks ahead. The ever so slight grin that tugs on his lips, telling her that he knows she’s staring. 

Her eyes then drop to his hands. Large and strong, yet delicate as he holds the bottle. Idly, she wonders if he could lift her. Another shiver overcomes her. 

She wants to call his bluff, just for the hell of it.

“Fine,” Nairobi tells him, arching an eyebrow in challenge and turning to face Berlin properly. The way she squares her shoulder to him almost feels aggressive, like she’s taunting him, daring him to make the next move. “If you’re not going to let it go until you’ve gotten it out of your system, then fine, get it out of your system.” 

Berlin blinks for a moment, then tightens his jaw and turns to face her. Her legs are sprawled across the couch, feet resting by his hip. They’d been sitting this way for the past half an hour and he’d barely looked at her, but now his eyes rake over her form, like a lion admiring his prey. He sets the bottle down onto the coffee table delicately, then rests his hand on her ankle. 

His grip is strong, but not so tight that she couldn’t pull away. Surprisingly, he drags his thumb across her bare skin and it feels more intimate than if he were to rag her clothes off and fuck her right there and then. 

His eyes lock with hers one more time. Are you sure?

She nods, but he does nothing. “I won’t keep reassuring you,” she tells him, “the offer expires in-”.

She can’t finish her words. His hand on her ankle trails up her calf, and as quick as a flash, both of his hands are behind her thighs. Lifting her. Practically dragging her into his lap. 

“Right here?” she asks sceptically. 

“Yes,” he growls, gripping the back of her neck and pulling her lips to his. 

Their lips don’t fit together at first. It’s too sloppy and too needy. Their teeth clash as they battle for dominance. She grinds down on his lap. Hard. He lets out a noise that strays the boundary between pleasure and pain. 

Berlin winds his hands through her hair and grips her tightly. Unwillingly, she moans into his mouth. He’s making it clear that if they’re doing this, they’re doing his way. He isn’t giving up control any time soon, but it doesn’t mean that Nairobi wont put up a fight. 

She grabs at his shirt, feeling her nails dig into his flesh beneath. He nips at her lip with his teeth hard enough to draw blood. She hadn’t realised how much she needed this. The need consumes her dangerously, and she only needs more. She can feel him hard beneath her, and she isn’t sure if it speaks to his general horniness, or his attraction to her, but either way the want keeps building.

Their roaming hands pull at one another’s clothes, but nothing is removed, simply shifted for better access. Nairobi frees Berlin from his trousers as he yanks down the material of her vest to swirl his tongue around her nipple. Somehow they separate just enough for Nairobi to slip out of the small pair of shorts that she’s wearing. 

She rides him hard and fast. No gentle touches. No gradual build up. 

She slips her hand between their bodies to touch herself but he grips her wrist, stopping her hand in its tracks. 

“Fuck y-” she starts, but the words catch in her throat as he replaces her hand with his own.

It’s surprising, because Berlin doesn’t seem like the type of man to give a damn about the woman’s pleasure, but the she supposes that he would have to be at least a half decent fuck to get five women to marry him. 

Turns out, he’s more than just half-decent. 

His thumb works expert circles around her clit, pressure matching the intensity with which she rides him. She opens her mouth to tell him faster, but he’s one step ahead of her. 

As she comes she curls her fingers around his biceps and squeezes her eyes tightly shut. He follows not long afterwards, with his teeth marking her shoulder. She practically collapses on top of him as they ride out the aftershocks, breathing erratically. His lips graze her collarbone in a way that vaguely resembles a kiss, and he steadies her arm as she climbs off his lap. 

They look away from one another as they re-dress. She glances at him briefly. Berlin doesn’t seem like the type to cuddle after sex. And especially not after sex like that. 

“That was-” she starts awkwardly, running her hand through her hair. 

“Goodnight, Nairobi,” he tells her as he reaches for the discarded bottle of bourbon. 

-x-

It’s never acknowledged, but oddly, after the first day and a half, there’s no tension in the air. He doesn’t change the way he looks at her. He doesn’t speak to her any differently. No flirty winks, no knowing eye contact. Nothing. 

God, it’s not like she expected to be Mrs Berlin number six, but after three days with no recognition, she’s offended. Men always want more from her. The fact that he can be less than four feet away from someone who rode his dick the way Nairobi did and look at her without even a hint of desire just speaks to how much of a bastard he really is. 

On the evening of the third night, she lays awake in her bed for no more than fifteen minutes before she decides that enough is enough. She slips out of her bedroom and into the hallway, tiptoeing as she walks past the doors, trying to remember which room is Berlin’s. The last thing she needs is to surprise an unsuspecting Moscow with a late night visit. 

When she reaches his room, she hesitates. There are rules she tells herself. Important rules. Rules that prevent people from getting killed. Is it worth dying just for another hasty, needy fuck? 

But then she reconsiders. The rule prohibits personal relationships. So far, what she knows of Berlin, she doesn’t like. He’s rude and condescending and, frankly, an asshole. She’s in no danger of developing feelings for the guy. Nairobi only wants one thing. No strings attached. 

She pushes open the door and sees him sitting in an armchair by the window, reading a book with a dusty old jacket and drinking a glass of red wine. He sighs in a way that says he’d been expecting her and sets the book down. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” She snaps the moment the door is closed. 

He turns slightly and quirks an eyebrow. “I’m sorry?”

“Why have you been ignoring me?” 

He smirks and stands up, straightening down his jacket. “I haven’t,” he tells her, and frustratingly, he’s not wrong. He hasn’t been ignoring her, he’s been treating her exactly the same as he did before, which is somehow worse. He chuckles and takes a step towards her. “Did you expect me to start pining over you?”

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, but he takes a step closer. “Did you want me to give you puppy dog eyes? Or pass you notes in class?” he leers, getting closer with each word. 

He isn’t teasing her, he’s mocking her. Belittling her. She grits her teeth and turns to leave his bedroom but he grabs her by the wrist and pulls her back towards him. He looms over her and she feels her breath catch in her throat. “Did you want me to try and fuck you again?” he whispers. 

She swallows and inhales sharply, then locks her eyes with his. “No,” she lies. 

“No?” he repeats back to her, smirking devilishly. 

“No,” she tells him again. And then she’s standing on her tiptoes and her lips are on his. 

Berlin wastes no time in bending down to grip behind her thighs to lift her up into his arms. Nairobi’s ankles lock behind his back and her fingers grip his hair. In two long strides he crosses the room and lowers them down onto the bed. She isn’t sure whether it’s because of his weight on top of her or the intensity with which he’s sucking at her neck, but she feels like she can’t breathe. 

With as much force as she can muster, she pushes her hips upwards, knocking him off balance just enough so that she flips them. She straddles him, with her knees either side of his waist. A flicker of anger crosses his face, followed by a smirk, and a slight shake of his head. He hooks one arm around her back and the other around her legs, then flips them again so that he’s back on top. 

He pins her wrists above her head, telling her that this time, he’s on top, then his lips re-find the spot on her neck. She sinks into it, and when he attempts to move his hand away, she holds him in place. His grips around her wrists tightens and she moans softly. 

Berlin continues with his lips and teeth, kissing and nipping and her neck and collarbones. He nudges the hem of her vest down and kisses the dip between her breasts, then without warning he takes one of her nipples into his mouth. She moans again, louder this time. 

“Be quiet,” he growls, then sucks harder. 

After a slight adjustment, he holds both of her wrists above her head with one of his hands, then trails the other hand down her body. He palms at her breasts briefly before moving his hand lower. The wait as he drags his hand across her stomach is agonising. When he stops at the waistband of her shorts, she bucks her hips in frustration. 

“Patience is a virtue, my dear,” he tells her, as he slips his fingers beneath the material. 

He wastes no time in teasing her, and drags two fingers across her slit. Once, twice, then a third time. The sensation is overwhelming and Nairobi lets her head fall back onto the mattress. She moans again, and feels slightly pathetic, whimpering at his mercy. But then he drags his hand out of her underwear and brings his two fingers up to his lips and she can’t feel anything at all. 

He releases her wrists and for a moment she misses the feeling of him pinning her down, but as his tongue trails down her abdomen she’s grateful that she can thread her hand through his hair. She manages to maintain enough focus to lift her hips as he pulls down her shorts and underwear, then lets her head roll back onto the pillow as she feels his mouth on her clit. 

The feeling is almost overwhelming. He pushes one finger inside of her, then another. The thrusts of his fingers match the pace of his tongue, bringing Nairobi closer and closer to the edge. 

She needs more, but she doesn’t want to speak - too afraid to bring them back to reality - so she tightens her grip on his hair. She knows she must be hurting him, but she doesn’t care. The growl-like noise that he makes as he curls his fingers upwards, harder and faster, tells her that he can take it. 

He must feel her shaking, or notice her breath becoming more ragged, or just have a sixth sense to match his narcissism, but he reaches up to press his hand over her mouth as she comes. He manages to muffle the moan that she herself didn’t expect to make. 

As he moves back up to the head of the bed, he makes it very obvious that he is scanning up and down her body with his eyes. “You look very,” he pauses, “satisfied”.

She scoffs and shakes her head, as her breath returns to normal. Only he could ruin a moment like this by gloating. 

Berlin moves away from her and looks as though he may get out of the bed, so she looks at him in confusion. “Aren’t you going to fuck me?”

He tuts and shakes his head, “a proper lady should never proposition a man in such a vulgar manner.” He looks at her more intently, almost mockingly, as she lays half naked in his bed. “Ask me again.”

Nairobi shakes her head again, propping herself up on her elbows. “You’re a pig, Berlin.”

He cocks his head then moves back towards her, gripping her bicep and pushing her back down onto the bed. “Ask me again,” he tells her, voice cold and unwavering.

She swallows softly and tries to pull her arm away, but his grip tightens. Then he moves his body so that he’s hovering over her. He slips one leg between hers and nudges her knees apart, then with his free hand he grazes his fingers along her inner thigh. 

“Ask,” he says, trailing his hand upwards and bringing his face closer to hers, “me” he whispers, sliding his fingers over her entrance and dipping his lips to her ear, “again.”

She hates him. How can he have this effect on her? Her breathing hitches as she feels his tongue dart out across her earlobe. His fingers tease her delicately. 

“Please, Berlin,” she asks softly.

“I didn’t catch that,” he teases, sucking softly at the skin of her neck. 

“Fuck yo-”. She’s cut off with a moan as he pushes two fingers inside of her. “Please, Berlin,” she asks again, louder this time. “Fuck me.” 

He pulls back slightly, enough so that she can see his face, and licks his lips before leaning back down to kiss her. She can taste herself on his lips. Once more, there’s a battle for dominance in the kiss. It’s rough, frenzied almost. 

He pulls her vest over her head, leaving her naked whilst he is fully clothed. She expects to feel vulnerable, but she doesn’t. She’s proud of her body. She wants him to look at her. To appreciate her physique. She wants to arouse him, and evidently, she does. 

Their lips meet once more, and she tugs at the buttons of his shirt as he unclasps his belt. Once he’s undressed, he’s between her legs once more. Nairobi can’t decide whether she wants to tangle her hands in his hair, or drag her nails down his back, or clutch on to his biceps for dear life. As he pushes into her, groaning whilst he does, she settles for the latter. 

After a few minutes, he winds one arm around her waist and one around her shoulders, then rolls them so that she’s on top once more. A satisfied grin crosses her face as his back hits the mattress. Berlin thrusts his hip upwards, sending a shiver of pleasure down her spine. Then, with one hand on his chest and the other on his thigh, she rides him like she needs it to survive. 

His hands grip her hips and she can see him watching her. She plays to her audience, bringing up one hand to tweak her nipple and throwing her head back in pleasure. When he moves one hand to toy with her clit, it feels like ecstasy. Nairobi comes first, and he follows only seconds later. With ragged breaths, she collapses onto his chest and he tangles his fist in her hair, pulling her closer. 

“Fuck,” she breathes out. 

As soon as she feels his body stiffen beneath her, she knows that the moment is over. 

Carefully, she extracts herself from their tangle of limbs, looking away as she finds her discarded clothes on the floor. She spots her underwear peeking out from beneath his dresser, but pulls her shorts on without them, opting to leave her a small token of her appreciation. 

Nairobi has never been the type of woman to sneak off after sex. It’s not as though she likes to split a bottle of wine and talk about their feelings, but a lazy cuddle and a cigarette always seems to hit the spot. She glances back over her shoulder as she pulls on her t-shirt, seeing Berlin fastening up the top button on his trousers. He isn’t looking at her. 

It’s for the best, this way. No attachments. No feelings. No mess. Just one goal, and a joint effort to achieve it. 

She tiptoes across the floor to reach the door, careful of the creaky floorboards. Though, her caution seems redundant given the very loud and very vulgar noises she was making just moments ago. 

“Hey,” she says lightly from the doorway, causing him to look up and catch her eye. “Were you really going to stop before we fucked, earlier?”

He smirks and exhales softly. “I was getting up to pass you some water,” he tells her, gesturing to the bottle on his nightstand. 

Nairobi laughs, and nods, and as her chest tightens she wishes she wouldn’t have asked. 

“Goodnight, Berlin.”

-x- 

She catches him looking at her over dinner a week later. The group is outside gathered around the table and sipping sangria as Moscow and Helsinki work the barbecue. Rio and Denver are kicking a ball back and forth between them as Tokyo watches. The Professor is too engrossed in whatever he’s writing in his notepad to look up. Oslo is smoking a cigarette and gazing into sprawling fields.

She only glances at him for a moment, but his gaze is unmistakable. He wants her. 

Nairobi grins and stretches out in her chair, propping her shin against the table. Slowly, she slips out of her thick fur jacket, leaving only her thin t-shirt beneath. As though to relieve herself of tension, she rolls her neck, tilting her jaw upwards and exposing the expanse of skin that she’d want him to kiss. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him tighten the grip on his glass of sangria, then unfasten the top button of his shirt. 

Unable to resist the temptation, she rises from the table and saunters back towards the house. She doesn’t look back to check if he’s watching - she knows he is. 

Heading directly to his bedroom would be too expected, and she wants to have a little fun with him first, so she makes her way to the kitchen. If anyone asks, she’s just getting some ice. Purely innocent intentions. 

It would be foolish for him to follow her immediately, so she knows she may have to wait a while. She makes herself busy by tidying up the mess that Moscow and Helsinki had made as they prepared the meat ready for the barbecue. By the time she’s done, she surfaces are clean, the dishes are piled on the draining rack, and the kitchen looks more like something habitable than a nuclear testing sight. 

As she stretches up to put the last few spices back onto the top shelf of the cupboard, she feels a presence behind her. Feigning ignorance, she continues to stretch as she reaches for the shelf. 

“I can help you with that,” she hears Berlin’s voice tell her softly as he comes to stand behind her. With one hand, he takes the jar of spices from her hand, and with the other, he cups her ass, sliding his hand into her back pocket. 

Nairobi grins and rolls her hips, only enticing him further. He kneads at the flesh of his ass and, with no preamble, drops his lips to her neck. Surprised at his forwardness in the communal area, she gasps softly, but leans back into his touch. 

“What, are you planning on fucking me right here in the kitchen?” she purrs, almost teasingly, but minutes later she’s bent over the counter top as he takes her hard and fast. 

The following week, when Nairobi sleeps poorly and wakes up before dawn, she hears Berlin’s door creak open and follows the sound of him walking towards the bathroom for his morning shower. Impulsively, she sneaks in to join him. 

After that, it doesn’t stop. 

They live together. They plan the heist. They have sex. They don’t talk about it.


	2. Chapter 2

They make it almost a month before things start to change, and when they do, it’s Tokyo’s fault. 

Sure, she could blame herself for volunteering to get shirtless in front of her teammates. Or she could blame the Professor for thinking it was a good idea to try and teach anatomy with marker pens. But really, it’s Tokyo's fault for getting overly curious and trying to take a peek at her childbirth scar. It sets off a fuse that Nairobi had considered dormant after so many years, and it takes her by surprise. 

By the time Nairobi has been wrestled away from Tokyo and has stormed back to her bedroom, it’s early afternoon. The Professor decided to call off class for the rest of the day to give everyone space to breathe, which, honestly, is a blessing. Nairobi feels as though she won't last one more night in this house without snapping somebody's neck.

As she drops down onto her bed, ready to sleep the rest of the afternoon away, she hears a knock at her door, shortly followed by the sound of it opening. She opens her mouth to tell her unwanted visitor to go fuck themselves, but as she glances over her shoulder, she sees that it’s Berlin. 

“I’m not in the mood,” she tells him, buying her face in her pillow. 

“Get up,” he says from her doorway. 

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I’m not in the mood. Get out”

He doesn’t leave. “I’m not here for that,” he smirks. “Please, just come with me.”

She sits up and turns to face him. “Look, Berlin, if you’re here to lecture me for going after that son of a bitch then I don’t want to hear it.”

“You mean your little cat fight? Very hot, I must say. Well done.”

She grits her teeth and shakes her head. Sometimes, she wonders how she can bring herself to go to bed with him. He’s a condescending, slimey, misogynist. He’s insufferable. He’s nothing like the type of man she would go for in real life. But this isn’t real life anymore. 

“What do you want, Berlin.”

“Just come with me,” he asks once more. “You need to get away from this house for a few hours just as much as I do.”

This peeks her interest and she sits up. “Are we going to the city?”

He shakes his head. “Not quite, but it’s the best I have to offer.”

She sighs, glancing back towards her pillow. It’s not too late to ask him to leave so that she can resume her plan to sleep the day away, but God, she’d do anything to get out of this house. 

As she drags herself out of bed to put on her shoes, she realises that Berlin has never actually been in her room before. They always fuck in his bedroom. Or in the shower. Or on the sofa. Or anywhere other than her room. This is her private space and, even though he’s the man who has been giving her orgasm after orgasm for the past month, it unsettles her that he’s in here.

Nairobi follows Berlin out of her room and down the staircase into the main hall, where the Professor seems to be waiting for him. The Professor glances back and forth between Berlin and Nairobi, then throws Berlin a confused glance. 

“She’s coming with me,” Berlin tells the Professor, answering the question he seems to have asked with his eyes. Nairobi opens her mouth to ask where he’s actually taking her, but Berlin nudges her with his elbow and she reconsiders. 

The Professor doesn’t look convinced, and adjusts his glasses with his thumb and forefinger and shifts uncomfortably. “Are you sure that’s a good-”

“Yes,” Berlin cuts him off. “She needs,” he hesitates and glances at Nairobi, “to buy feminine products.” 

Nairobi lets out an involuntary snort of laughter as the Professor’s nostrils flair and his cheeks tinge pink. “Very well then,” he nods, then takes out a set of keys from his pocket and tosses them to Berlin, who catches them with one hand. 

“We’ll be back before it gets dark,” Berlin tells the Professor, then ushers Nairobi towards the front door. 

Once the door closes behind them, Nairobi turns to Berlin. “Where are you taking me?”

“To a pharmacy a few towns over. I need to pick up,” he pauses, “supplies for the heist.”

She groans and rolls her eyes, “you dragged me out of bed to take me to a pharmacy?”

He laughs as they stroll away from the house, “it’s not about the destination, my dear, it’s about the journey. You need to get away from this house and blow off some steam. Feel the breeze on your cheeks, no?”

“And how exactly am I going to feel the breeze in that shitty old car?” she laughs. 

“We aren’t taking the car.”

Minutes later, Nairobi certainly feels the breeze on her cheeks as they drive down the dirt track away from the house on the Professor's motorcycle. Berlin drives, and Nairobi sits behind him, with her legs hugging his hips. Her arms circle his waist, and oddly, it feels like their most intimate act. 

She can feel taught stomach muscles and idly grazes her thumb back and forth. She feels the wind whirling around them, pushing them closer together and sealing them in their own little bubble. 

The best thing about this arrangement is that between the helmets and the noise from the wind, they can’t talk. She isn’t going to have to talk about her outburst with Tokyo, or worse, about her son. Berlin is no fool, he’s seen her naked body countless times over the past month, so he must have connected the dots after he’d seen her childbirth scar. Thankfully, he’s never asked about it, and she’s never cared to tell him, but she worried that Tokyo’s curiosity would make her child the elephant in the room. 

At least whilst they’re on the bike, she can press her cheek against his back, tighten her arms around his waist, close her eyes and push her worries away. 

-x- 

They arrive at the pharmacy after around forty minutes and Berlin steadies the bike whilst Nairobi climbs down. Once he’s off the bike, he takes off his helmet and ruffles his hair with his hands. Nairobi tugs frustratedly at the strap on her own helmet, as it won't budge. 

“Be gentle with it,” Berlin tells her, standing close and covering her hands with his own. “Treat it with respect,” he pushes her hands away and unclasps the strap, “like a fine wine,” he continues as he pulls the helmet from her head, “or a beautiful woman.”

He sets both helmets down on the bike as Nairobi stretches out her joints and takes in the view around them. The pharmacy that he’s brought her to seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but the landscape is beautiful. She rolls her neck and clicks her knuckles. Berlin was right, she really did need this time away from that fucking house. 

When she looks back over to Berlin, she sees that he’s watching her. “What do you want?” She smirks. 

He looks away. “Nothing.”

She kicks the gravel beneath her feet and shoves her hands in her pockets. “Come on then,” she tells him, walking towards the pharmacy.”

“No,” he stops her. “Wait here. I won’t be long.” 

She groans and rolls her eyes, but knows there’s no point in arguing with him. As he walks towards the pharmacy, she walks away from it, picking a place to lay in the sun as she waits. 

Whilst he’s gone, and in the absence of the distraction of the changing landscape or the need to hold tightly to Berlin whilst he drives, she’s forced to confront the thoughts she’d been trying to push away. 

Axel. He’ll always be her baby boy. She thinks about him every day, even if it’s only fleeting - even if it makes her heart crumble every Goddamn time. He’s the reason she’s doing this. She’s going to whirl him away and give him the life he deserves. Show him every continent. Provide for him, like she should’ve been doing for a long time. 

She pulls a clump of grass out with her fist and looks up at the sky, trying to blink away her tears. Fuck. If Berlin comes back out and sees her crying he won’t hesitate to make some cruel joke or belittle her tears. Frankly, the man is an enigma. He can be charming and suave one moment, then a downright insufferable cunt the next. 

Every once in a while, he’s gentle. Only briefly, and it’s a side of himself that he keeps well hidden. It’s usually in moments when he lets his guard down, like immediately after rough, fierey sex, when he looks her up and down to make sure he hasn’t hurt her. When he kisses her on the temple before she sneaks out of his bedroom, which is the closest they ever get to a post-sex cuddle. 

He’d scoff at the mere suggestion, but she thinks that beneath the cruelty and narcissism and disdain for others, there might be a semblance of a real man. A kind man. 

Her mind drifts back to Axel. She thinks about how tall he is now. About how big his feet are, or what he likes to watch on tv. She inhales deeply and pinches the bridge of her nose. Just a few more months. 

“Time to go,” Berlin’s voice startles her from behind. 

She glances at the watch on her wrist as he stows the small package from the pharmacy in the hatch under the seat of the motorcycle. “Seriously, we’ve driven all the way out here to stay for five lousy minutes?”

“You want me to take you for an ice cream?” he mocked.

“Can I drive the motorcycle?” 

“And kill us both before the heist of our lives? I don’t imagine the Professor would be too happy with that, Nairobi.” Berlin passess her the second helmet, scoffing at her suggestion.

“I don’t think the Professor would be too happy with many of the things we do, Berlin,” she says, lowering her voice to a flirty tone and stepping closer to him. She toys with the top button of his suit jacket and looks up at him through her eyelashes, hoping to seduce him into giving her the keys. “It’s not like I want to drive all the way back,” she whispers, leaning up to his ear, “just let me take her for a ride.”

He inhales deeply and shakes his head with a slight smile. “Don’t hurt yourself, you’re so much more useful to me alive” he tells her as he shoves the keys into her hand.

She grabs the keys before he can change his mind, quickly pulls on the helmet, then mounts the bike. She feels like an excited child as she revs the engine and feels the surge of adrenaline curse through her veins. 

Nairobi doesn’t take the bike far, just around the thin gravel paths that surround the pharmacy, but she manages to pick up a little speed. She has the urge to take off her helmet and feel the wind in her hair, but she hears Berlin’s patronising tone in her head, chastising her for her carelessness, so she decides against it. 

She hits a rock on the path and is jolted slightly, causing her to scream, but she manages to regain her balance and pick up speed. Then suddenly, she’s laughing. Whole heartedly. Care free. Nothing is funny. Everything is fucking awful. She’s about to embark on an almost suicidal mission inside the Royal Mint, her chances of finding her son are slim, she’s broken the first rule of the heist by fucking an uptight mysogenist who is 20 years older than her, and frustratingly some of the times when she enjoys herself the most are with him. 

But she keeps on laughing. 

She skids to a halt beside where he sits in the grass, still laughing giddily. “Get on” she calls over to him. He looks at her sceptically. “Come on, Berlin. Live a little.” He considers it for a moment, then stands and walks towards her. He sits on the bike behind her and curls his arms around her waist.

Without warning him, she squeezes the accelerator tightly, hard, sending them launching forwards. 

“Quit fucking around,” he mutters, gripping her tighter. 

With another burst of laughter, she veers off the path and into the sparsely wooded area. She swerves in and out of the trees, not flinching as they pass thin branches and leaves. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Berlin yells over the noise of the engine.

“Isn’t this exciting,” she yells back to him, laughing harder.

“Slow down,” she shouts. His hands move from her waist to her wrists and he yanks the handle bars sharply to the left, it’s only then she realises they're swerving around a fallen branch, missing it by mere inches. “Stop the bike, Nairobi,” he shouts again. 

She ignores him, continuing her erratic pursuit of adrenaline, but after a few moments she feels him wrap his hand around hers and squeeze the breaks tightly, causing them to skid to a halt. He dismounts the bike in seconds, pulling his helmet off. 

“You stupid girl, you could’ve killed us both,” he shouts as she gets off the bike too. “Do you have no regard for your life? Or for mine?”

“We were fine,” she laughs, still high on adrenaline. 

“You have no idea how much you put at risk.” He raises his voice, getting up in her face, shouting viciously.

“I just wanted to feel something,” she shouts back. “Something different. You said I needed to get away from the house, well this is me getting away from everything.”

“You’re reckless and immature,” he spits, getting closer. 

“Well you’re uptight and conceited,” she snaps back. 

“Give me the keys, I’m driving us back to the house. I never should’ve brought you in the first place.” He holds out his hand impatiently. 

“Why did you bring me, hmm?” Nairobi challenges, pushing her face up to his. “Shit, Berlin, you know my first thought was that you might have brought me out here to kill me and dump my body. So what is it that you wanted exactly?”

He sighs, and for just a moment, he looks hurt. Genuinely hurt. But then the expression is gone. “I was doing you a favour, you ungrateful bitch.”

She swallows and finds herself blinking away tears, but she doesn’t know why. She wants to tell him that she is grateful. That this afternoon has been one of the best she’s had in a long time. That she doesn’t know why she’s been acting so reckless and immature, but when they’re in the Mint she’s going to have her shit together. That she misses her son and she desperately wants to tell someone about him, but that she’s beyond grateful that he hasn’t asked.

But she doesn’t know how to put any of that into words, so she kisses him. Hard. 

It’s all tongue and teeth and she moans loudly into his mouth. He pushes her against the closest tree and she welcomes it as she lifts her by her thighs. She locks her ankles behind his back and breaths heavily as he grinds into her. 

He slides his hand up beneath her thin summer dress and pushes her panties aside to touch her. 

“Fuck,” she sighs into his mouth, “don’t stop. God, Berlin, don’t stop.” 

Once she's ready, he frees himself from his trousers and pushes into her with one hard thrust. She cries out and drops her head to his shoulder, grateful that he’s holding onto her so tightly.

He fucks her hard and fast, grunting into her mouth, biting the skin of her neck, holding her tightly. The rough bark of the tree hurts her back and she feels tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, but she begs him to keep going. 

They reach their orgasms in almost unison, and the moment that it’s over, she starts to cry. Loud and violently. He sets her down and she turns away from him, pulling her dress back down. The tears won’t stop falling, and she doesn’t know why. 

“Nairobi,” she hears his voice behind her. 

She can't bear to turn and face him. She doesn't want to see him mocking her. She’d walk back to the house by herself if it meant she could go the rest of the night without him seeing her face.

“Nairobi,” he says again. He’s closer this time, and she takes another step away. 

She hears him walking then he stops immediately behind her. His fingertips ghost over her shoulder. “Don’t look at me,” she pleads softly. 

“I’m not,” he tells her, then curls both his arms around her.

“I said don’t look at me,” she says louder this time, pulling away from his grip.

“I’m not looking,” he reassures her, and she feels his chest against her back. “I’m not looking,” he whispers again, tightening his arms. 

Accepting defeat, she sighs and leans backwards into his embrace, letting her sobs shake her body. He anchors her down. He doesn’t say anything, just holds her still. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest against her body helps her to steady her own breathing. She thinks she feels him press a kiss into her hair, but she can’t be sure.

-x- 

The drive back to Toledo is nothing like the first. It’s quiet and sombre, but Berlin keeps them steady and she’s grateful for that. 

When they pull up on the gravel drive, she’s not sure what to say. They stand awkwardly with their helmets in their hands at the front door of the house, avoiding eye contact. Nairobi clears her throat. Berlin sighs softly and takes a step closer. She isn’t sure if he’s about to hug her, or kiss her, or yell at her for her recklessness again, but her question goes unanswered when the front door swings open and they jump apart from one another like they’ve been burned. 

The Professor greets them and takes the keys from Berlin. Berlin nods at the Professor, and the way the Professor nods back tells Nairobi that they’ve shared some kind of knowledge between them.

“Nairobi,” the Professor nods in her direction, “I trust you erm,” he shifts uncomfortably, “got everything you need?”

His awkwardness is enough to snap Nairobi’s thoughts away from Berlin and whatever the fuck happened between them on their bike ride. She laughs loudly, and tells him that Berlin made she is well taken care of, then leaves them in the doorway as she retreats up to her room. 

Nairobi has just gotten comfortable in her bed when she hears a knock at the door. She groans and rolls over, ready to tell Berlin that this time, she really does need to sleep, but to her surprise, it’s Tokyo who enters. 

Tokyo doesn’t have to try hard to coax out Nairobi’s story about her son. Honestly, it feels so freeing to finally talk about him again. To acknowledge that he’s a part of her life - the reason that she’s here. 

When they’re finished talking, they start drinking. And it turns out, alcohol and music is an even better method of pushing away your problems than a motorcycle ride. Nairobi lets herself relax into it, feeling the music flowing through her as she tangles herself in fairy lights. The Professor chastises them like teenagers, telling them it’s time for bed, but she doesn’t care. All she wants to do is drink and laugh and forget. 

-x- 

It’s close to 5am and the sky is turning blue by the time Tokyo leaves her bedroom. Nairobi is seeing triple. She staggers to her bed, almost laying down, but something stops her. 

Berlin. 

She hates that he was so kind to her today. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to complicate things or make it personal. Before, they were nothing to each other. Warm bodies to use for their own selfish needs. Now, she doesn’t know what they are. She would’ve preferred it if he had left her on the side of the road sobbing. 

He had no right to hold her like that. No right to make her feel things that she didn’t ask to feel. 

She storms to his bedroom, determined to give him a piece of her mind. When she reaches the door, she doesn’t even knock, just pushes the door open as though she owns the place and waltzes right in.

“Berlin,” she whispers, stumbling slightly and using her hand to prop herself up on the wall. “Berlin wake up.”

He sits up with a start, hair tousled and eyes squinting, and for a moment she feels bad for waking him. But the fact that she feels bad for him makes her angry, because she shouldn’t be able to make him feel anything at all. 

He gets out of bed quickly and moves towards her. “What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses, “keep your voice down.” When he reaches where she stands in the doorway, he glances over her shoulder to look down the corridor in both directions, then grabs her by the arm and pulls into the room, quickly closing the door behind her. 

“What do you want?” He asks again.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she slurs, poking his chest.

“Nobody else needs to be woken up by your racket-”

“No,” she cuts him off. “Today. In the woods. You held me and you didn’t have to do that. Why did you do it?” She’s angry, which is stupid and she knows it. She shouldn’t be angry at him for being a decent human being. 

Berlin sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “You’re drunk,” he tells her, “go back to bed.”

Nairobi steps closer to him, all the words she’d wanted to say to him catch in her throat. She want to scream at him for making her feel things. She wants to tell him that he’s an asshole, and if it all goes to shit inside the Mint because of her emotional baggage, then it’s his fault, because this was his idea in the first place. He proposed a friends with benefits situation when they weren’t even friends in the first place. He’s the one who showed her that he cares and fucked it all up. 

Or maybe she’s just so starved of genuine affection, that the caresses of a man who wants nothing but her body make her feel more vulnerable than she has in years. 

“I hate you,” she whispers, looking him dead in the eye. 

He nods solemnly. “I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

Nairobi balls her hands into fists at her side and screws up her face in frustration before closing the gap between them and crashing her lips onto his. He kisses her back momentarily, then pushes her away. “I’m not doing this while you’re drunk,” he mutters, turning away from her. 

“How’s it different from fucking me any other time?” She gets a little closer to him, trying to recapture his attention. 

“Go to bed,” he repeats, trying to put some distance between them. 

Nairobi sighs as she glances towards Berlin’s bed. She’s been in this room countless times over the past month. She’s been fucked on that bed, and on his desk, and his chair, and up against the wall. None of it meant a damn thing to her. It was always just a bit of excitement to pass the time - an outlet for all her pent up energy. But Nairobi isn’t the type of person who doesn’t develop attachments, and she’s always known that about herself. 

She walks to the edge of the bed, pulls back the covers, and slips beneath the sheets, which are still warm from when he was asleep only moments ago. Berlin sighs as he watches her. “I told you, I’m not fucking you while you’re drunk.”

Nairobi lays her head back on the pillow and closes her eyes. “I know,” she admits softly, “I don’t want to fuck.”

“The others will be getting up soon,” he warns. She knows that she can’t be here when that happens, or else she’d be spotted leaving his bedroom. 

“Please, Berlin. Just five minutes.”

She doesn’t look at him, so it’s impossible for her to follow his thought process. That is until she feels the mattress dip beneath his weight as he slides under the blanket beside her. Nairobi turns on her side to face him and he lays on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling. 

“Well?” he asks, then glances towards her, then gestures towards his shoulder. 

Tentatively, Nairobi shuffles closer. Her hesitancy is almost laughable. She’s ridden his face on this very pillow only two nights ago, but the idea of putting her head on his shoulder seems so terrifyingly intimate.

She brings her cheek to rest on his chest and slips her hand over his waist, and he responds by curling the arm that she’s closest to around her, resting his hand on her lower back. 

“Don’t fall asleep.”

“I won't,” she lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback is much appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

The afternoon sun beats down unrelentingly onto Nairobi’s shoulders and glints off the crystal wine glasses on the table. The rays illuminate the subtle furrow of Berlin’s brow as he considers his next move. 

“Come on already,” she groans, rocking on her chair and gazing over to the grass where Denver and Rio are kicking a ball back and forth. She would much rather be doing that right now.

He looks up at her, concentration evidently broken. “Nairobi,” he tsks, “concentrate on the game.” 

She groans again and looks at the chessboard between them, most of the pieces are rearranged, she’s captured a few of his pawns and he’s taken one bishop, a castle, and both her rooks. They haven’t made any significant progress in the past 20 minutes. “Why are we even doing this?” she asks, wondering how it’s possible that he’s still sitting there in a three piece suit not even breaking a sweat. 

He puts his finger to his lips to quieten her before leaning closer to the board and resuming his focus.

“Jesus,” she groans after another minute. “Seriously, what are you trying to achieve? Did the Professor tell you I need to improve my critical thinking skills before the heist? Or do I just need to be able to play chess to follow all the variants of checkmate metaphors?”

He looks up at her as though she’s speaking a foreign language. “What are you talking about? We’re playing chess because I enjoy the game.”

“Oh,” she mutters. She hadn’t considered that. 

With Berlin, there’s always an ulterior motive. There’s always a lesson to be learned, or some point to be taken from the things that he does. When he approached her as she laid on the grass, looming over her and blocking out the sun, and asked her to come and play chess with him, she’d assumed there was a reason for it. But the fact that all he wants is to play a game that he enjoys is not what she’d expected at all. 

The realisation makes her uncomfortable and she shifts in her chair. “Okay,” she tells him, “I’ll be quiet.”

He doesn’t look up from the game, but she feels his fingertips graze her bare knee and slide up her thigh briefly before he withdraws them and, finally, moves his piece, capturing her second bishop. “Make your next move carefully,” he tells her, in a low and slightly flirtatious tone, “otherwise I’ll capture your queen, my dear.”

Despite the blazing heat, a chill runs down her spine. Stuck with a sudden determination to give Berlin some real competition, she leans forwards to analyse the board and make her next move. She shifts her leg so that her ankle brushes against Berlins, grazing him softly. 

Right as Nairobi is about to move her piece, a sudden jolt shakes the table, sending all the pieces clattering to the ground. She looks up in surprise and sees Denver and Rio running towards the table in pursuit of their football, but evidently they’re too late to stop the collision. She doesn’t even need to look at Berlin to know that there is a thunderous expression on his face. 

Nairobi bursts into laughter as Rio rushes to the table, stammering an apology. Berlin, however, seems less amused as he stands from the table, unnervingly calm. He looks at the football, then back to Rio and Denver, then unbuttons his suit jacket and starts to take it off. 

“Wait, hold on,” Nairobi manages through her laughter, standing up from the table, “you can’t beat a guy just for fucking up the chess that’s just trashy.”

Evidently ignoring her, he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, then bends down to pick up the football. She watches with curiosity, as do Denver and Rio, when Berlin walks towards them with the ball in his hands. He places the ball on the ground and stops it with his foot, then looks between the group. “You ruined Nairobi and I’s game, so you’ll have to let us join in with this one.”

Nairobi looks at Berlin in disbelief, only realising that he’s serious when he gestures for her to join them on the grass. “Okay,” she laughs, “I guess we’re doing this.”

The four of them play football for the next hour at least, joined by Tokyo and Helsinki. The Professor sits at the outdoor table to watch them, and to be on hand to break up the occasional scuffle that occurs. He seems just as surprised as Nairobi does to see Berlin joining in with the game. She’d always assumed he would be too uptight to get involved with a group activity like this, but out of the corner of her eye she catches him laughing and strategizing with Denver like it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

-x- 

Later that night, still riding the high of their day in the sun, Denver suggests to Rio and Nairobi that they sneak off to the festival in the neighbouring town that night - one night of freedom. She knows that the Professor would be beside himself if he realises what they’re doing, but honestly, a night off sounds like heaven. Subtly, Rio whispers the plan to Tokyo, and they decide to meet in her bedroom at 10pm, after the Professor has gone to bed. Nairobi feels like a schoolgirl again. 

At 9:30, she joins Tokyo in her room so that they can get ready together. As she’s flicking through her makeup bag, trying to find the perfect shade of red lipstick, a thought enters her mind that she can't help but voice. 

“Should I ask Berlin to come with us?”

Tokyo shoots her a look of disbelief, as though she’d suggested calling the local police force to ask if they’d like to join too. “Seriously? The guy is nearly 50, he’s probably asleep already,” she laughs. “Besides, he’s an asshole.” 

Nairobi laughs too, “yeah,” she agrees half halfheartedly, “he’s an asshole.”

Tokyo’s face splits into a grin and she turns to face her excitedly. “My God, you like Berlin?”

“No,” she defends herself quickly, but Tokyo laughs harder. 

“First the professor and now Berlin, hmm? Seems like you have a thing for older guys. Sophisticated and reserved, with fiery passion bubbling just below the surface?”

“I doubt that the Professor has a fiery passion for anything but the heist,” she jokes, changing the subject quickly. 

Luckily, the boys enter not long afterwards, and she doesn’t have to face any more of Tokyo’s mockery. 

Nairobi recognises Berlin’s jacket from the moment she lays eyes on it. Green, luxurious velvet. She grabs Denver by the shoulder and turns him to face her, pushing away the memory of the material of this jacket under her fingertips for a very different reason. 

“What is this?” she asks, feigning ignorance. 

“This is pure elegance, my friends,” Denver boasts. 

“Is this Berlin’s jacket?” she asks again, holding the jacket by the lapels and fighting the muscle memory telling her to pull it off him. 

Tokyo laughs loudly and shoots Nairobi a knowing look. “Keep that on all night and you might just get lucky with Nairobi. I hear she has a thing for men in jackets,” she teases.

“Berlin is going to kill you,” she warns Denver, knowing that she’s right. 

As they’re leaving, Denver launches into an impression of Berlin, Nairobi laughs along with the group. “Quit making me nervous,” she jokes as they leave the room. 

“Oh, so Berlin makes you nervous?” She hears Tokyo tease in a soft tone. Nairobi swats her playfully, and hopes that's the end of the matter. 

As it turns out, it is not the end of the matter. At the festival, Tokyo and Nairobi drink their beers side by side as they watch Rio and Denver show off their supposed dance moves. They were meant to be staying under the radar, but seemed to be basking in the attention. 

“You should fuck him,” Tokyo says, leaning in to Nairobi’s ear.

“Berlin?”

Tokyo grins. “I was talking about Denver, but that works too.”

Nairobi laughs and shakes her head. “Honey, I don’t think Denver could handle me.”

Tokyo raises her eyebrow. “Oh, but Berlin could?” she teases. 

“Fuck off,” Nairobi laughs. “No personal relationships, remember?” she asks, causing Tokyo to smirk and look away. 

“Okay, okay. But if it weren’t for the rule, would you fuck Berlin?”

She thinks about it for a moment. “No,” she lies. “I need a man who’s going to sweep me off my feet into a passionate love affair, not some cold sociopath like Berlin. Even if he does have excellent taste in jackets,” she jokes, to lighten the heavy tone of her answer.

Tokyo laughs again. “The man has been married five times, you think he doesn’t do passionate, whirlwind romances?”

Well, fuck. Nairobi has never considered that. She’s aware of his marriages, obviously, but had always just assumed that on some level he was just using the women to satisfy his own sexual desires, or some sadistic need for power and control. She has never considered the possibility that he actually loved these women. She has never thought him to be capable of feeling love at all. 

The thought clouds her mind for the rest of the evening, and she drinks to push it away. She sings and dances and laughs with her newfound friends - some of the greatest people she’s been around in a very long time before this entire experience began. She doesn’t think about Berlin. 

Drunkenly, she stumbles into Denver’s arms, stroking the material of his jacket, dipping her head into the crook of his neck to inhale his scent. “Put your arms around me,” she tells Denver, so he does. She shuts her eyes, and she doesn’t think about Berlin. 

-x-

After weeks and weeks of sun, it seems right that they’re struck with one of the biggest thunderstorms Nairobi has ever seen. The afternoon class, which was to be outdoor weapons training, has been cancelled until further notice, and the Professor has opted to use the free time to take Rio to set up the computers in the hangar. 

The rain has forced everybody indoors, into the solace of their own bedrooms or private spaces. It’s better this way, Nairobi thinks, because if they all spent almost all day together as they had been doing most days for the past three months, then somebody was bound to snap. But there’s only so much of her own company that Nairobi can stand before she starts to feel the unwanted thoughts creep in. And that absolutely can’t happen - so she seeks out the next best thing. 

First, Nairobi heads to the kitchen. She grabs a bottle of red wine from the rack, two of the fancy crystal glasses, and an apple. On the way back upstairs, she picks up the first book she sees balanced on the edge of the dining table, not caring to check the title. The only books around here are the Professor’s old war novels anyways.

She hesitates outside Berlin’s door just briefly, but then the thunder claps and a draft sweeps through the corridor, sending a chill through her body, and she knocks on the door before she can change her mind. He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t tell her to go away, which is Berlin’s code for ‘come in’.

When she enters, he’s sitting in his usual chair beside the window reading a book. He barely looks up, just throws her an acknowledging glance as she enters the room and closes the door behind her. She tries not to think about how natural this feels to her, because this wasn’t supposed to happen. He was never supposed to become the person she seeks out when she’s bored. 

She corks the wine and pours them both a glass, and as she hands Berlin his, she gives him the apple too. He shoots her a questioning look. “What’s this?”

“What does it look like?” she snaps back, unnecessarily hostile. So what? She’s seen him eating apples around the house and thought he’d appreciate one. Why does he have to make a big deal out of it? Logically, she knows that it’s reasonable for him to question why she brought him an apple, but the idea of explaining herself is far too embarrassing. 

“Well, thank you,” he smirks, then turns his attention back to his book as he takes a bite. 

Nairobi sits in the middle of Berlin’s bed, propped up on the pillows. She sips her wine and pretends to flick through the book in her hands, but really she’s enjoying the sound of the rain and the comforting presence of another person in the room. 

As she sits she thinks about how much has changed between her and Berlin over the past three months. When she’d first met him, she’d found him to be insufferable. He was cold and distant at best, and borderline sociopathic at worst. His unsettling false charm was never appealing to Nairobi in the slightest, and she hated the thought that many unsuspecting women would’ve been lured in by his husky tone and expensive suits. 

When she’d first slept with him, it was supposed to be a one time thing. He’d brought it up so many times that, she had to admit, she was starting to get curious. She couldn’t deny that he’s an attractive man. Tall and handsome, and she’s always had a thing for older guys. She naively believed that once would be enough. He’s frustratingly good at making her come. 

Nairobi could handle it if all she got from her situation from Berlin was a quick orgasm to ease the tension every few days. For the first month, it was exactly that. But something changed when he drove her out to that pharmacy. He showed that he was aware of her needs as a person, beyond just that of a good fuck. He helped her when he didn’t have to. He chose to take her on that trip with him when he knew she needed it, even though everyone in this house would jump at the opportunity to spend a few hours alone. 

And now. Well, now, Nairobi doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. They still fuck, obviously. It’s still hard and rough and somewhat impersonal. But then there’s everything else. They sit next to each other at mealtimes and talk about more than just the heist. Turns out he’s actually a lot more interesting than she gave him credit for. Although she supposed that you don't become a wanted man across the globe by working a 9-5 job. 

Despite the fact that Berlin is starting to appear to her to be more like an actual person than a self-serving misogynist in the shape of a man, Nairobi refuses to accept that their relationship is changing in an unexpected way. The only reason she’s in his bedroom is because she’s bored and she wants to fuck. As soon as it’s over, she’ll leave, as usual. She needs to stop overthinking this. 

Nairobi drains her wine glass and sets it down on the bedside table, followed by the book, then lifts her black sweater over her head and drops it to the floor. Berlin looks over and raises his eyebrows, throws her a smouldering look, then turns his attention back to his book. 

Unwilling to take silence for an answer, she reaches behind her back to unclasp her bra, and it joins her jumper on the floor. This time, his gaze lingers. He stares at her chest, unashamedly, but makes no move to stand. He takes a long sip from his wine glass and sets his book down, then turns to face her properly. 

She flutters her eyelashes at him and runs her hand over her chest then down her side. “Aren’t you going to join me?”

The thunder claps loudly outside the window and the lightning illuminates his face. She can see the dark lust in his eyes. “Keep going,” he tells her. 

With a grin, Nairobi sits up on her knees, trailing her hands over her body and teasing at the waistband of her jeans. His eyes widen when she reaches for the button, but then she pulls her hands away and brings them up to squeeze her breasts once more, keeping him on his toes. She wets her thumb with her tongue and drags it over her nipple, moaning softly. Berlin grips the hand rest of his armchair a little tighter. 

She pulls off her jeans seductively, leaving her in a small black thong. She looks up at him through her eyelashes, enticing him over. The bulge in his trousers tells Nairobi that he wants her, but he doesn’t move. With a grin, she settles back into the bed, then skims her hands down her body to reach her underwear. Berlin licks his lips slightly when she reaches them, but instead of taking them off, she pushes one hand beneath the material. 

Berlin shuts his eyes and inhales deeply, then opens them to look at her once more. Nairobi pulls her lower lip between her teeth as she slowly starts to rock her hips and touch herself. It isn’t like when she usually masturbates, quick and efficient - she’s putting on a show for him. Slowly moving her fingers. Moaning gently. Flicking her thumb over her nipple. Eventually, she increases the pace. Berlin’s name falls from her lips and she doesn’t know if it’s for him or for her. 

Her legs fall open further as she brings herself to the closer edge. But right as she’s about to come, he stands up from his chair. His arms hook under both her legs as he practically drags her to the edge of the bed, drops to his knees, and brings his mouth to her clit. He doesn’t take her underwear off, just pulls the material to the side so that he can shove two fingers inside of her. 

When she comes his name is on her lips, and this time, it’s for her.

He kisses the inside of her thigh as she rides out the aftershocks of her orgasm, and as soon as she’s ready he flips her so that she’s on her hands and knees. Nairobi hears the zipper on his trousers, feels his hands grip her hips, then he enters her. 

She fists tangle in his bed sheets and the thunder drowns out the sound of her pants as he takes her fast. One of his hands holds firm on her hips, and the other snakes down her back to tangle in her hair. Her own hand finds her clit and after a few minutes she reaches a second shaking orgasm. Berlin doesn’t last long after that. 

Once they’re finished, they dress quickly. He nods his head in appreciation, sits back down in his chair, and picks up his book. Nairobi retreats back to her own room, with a sense of uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. 

-x- 

Nairobi’s discomfort at the changing nature of their relationship sticks with her for the next three weeks. Her way of dealing with her feelings is to push them away. She pretends that nothing has changed. What happens between her and Berlin is a means to an end, nothing more. 

For that reason, she decides to make their sex rougher. More impersonal. Dirty and frantic, because if they slow down she has a chance to think about what they’re doing. If Berlin’s hands aren’t tugging her hair, he might drop a soft kiss onto her shoulder. If she isn’t on her hands and knees getting pushed into the bed, she might see the desire in his eyes. If she doesn’t tell him to spank her harder, she might ask him to wrap his arms around her and leave them there. 

Tonight, she may be taking it too far. She’s riding him hurriedly, and when he reaches up his hand to brush her hair away from her face, the intimacy of the action causes her to grab him by the wrist and move his hand from her hair to her neck. She needs him to be rougher with her - there can be nothing delicate about it. She covers his hand with hers, wrapping his fingers around her throat. He’s reluctant at first, resisting her strength, but gives in after a few moments. 

This isn’t something that Nairobi has done before, and if she’s honest it’s not something that she’s entirely sure she wants to do now. She just needs to feel something different. Or to stop feeling at all. She tightens her grip on his hand, closing his fingers further. 

“Nairobi,” she hears him say as he grips his free hand tightly on her hip, slowing her movements, and tries to pull away the hand on her throat. “Nairobi, what are you doing?”

Before she can respond, she feels her chest tighten. She drops her hand, releasing Berlin’s, and starts gasping for air. He wraps his arm around her waist and she falls onto her back on the bed beside him as she pants. When her breathing returns to normal, she realises that he’s staring. 

“What the fuck was that?” 

She shakes her head and turns away from him. “Nothing. I don’t know. Forget it.”

She can feel her cheeks burning red with embarrassment and tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, softer this time. 

“I’m fine, fuck off,” she snaps, moving to get out of the bed. 

He sighs and lays back on the bed as she pulls on her shorts. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?” She picks her t-shirt up off the ground and puts it on quickly, then balls up her bralette in her hand. 

“This,” he gestures to her, “running off, like you do every time.”

She scoffs and turns to face him properly. “Like you want me to stay.”

Momentarily, he looks hurt. But then the look is replaced by a sharp laugh as he gets up to pull on his own underwear. “No, you’re right. You know exactly what I want.”

Their eyes lock and her embarrassment and anger and desire to run evaporate, for just a split second. What do you want? She wants to ask him. But instead she shakes her head and looks away again. 

“We shouldn’t do this anymore.”

“What, the arguing or the choking?” he mocks. 

“Fucking. We shouldn’t fuck.” She ignores the way he furrows his eyebrows. “I’m not doing this again.” 

He exhales a sharp laugh and shakes his head. “Whatever. But if you’re expecting me to come begging fuck you in a few days time then you’re mistaken, my dear.”

“You’re an asshole.” 

“Oh, I’m the asshole? You’re no saint, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart.”

He laughs. “Sorry, I forgot. You’d rather I call you a little slut with my hands around your throat. Then rush out the moment it’s over to take a hot shower and scrub the scent of me off your skin?”

She feels tears pricking at the corners of her eyes but he doesn’t stop. “Is that why you started interrupting my showers in the morning? So that you could cut out the middle man?” he accuses. “I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long. Your libido must be out of this world if you’re willing to put up with screwing someone you apparently detest so fucking much.” 

This isn’t Nairobi at all. She’s optimistic and easygoing and loves life. She loves love - not this. Not bitterness and resentment and shame. She hates that she’s become someone that is so different from the woman who walked through the door to this house all those months ago. Maybe if they’d met in a bar, or on the sunny beaches of some far flung island, this would be different. She’d let herself be carefree with him. She can’t think about that. 

The Professor’s warning - no personal relationships - echos around her head like a siren. As Berlin stops his verbal assault, looking utterly defeated, she knows there’s no going back. 

“Go, if you’re going.”

She wants to stay. 

“Go,” he yells, startling her. 

Nairobi storms out of his bedroom without looking back. She slams the door to her own room behind her, not caring how it must sound to anyone else in the house. Then she climbs into bed, drags the covers over her body, and breaks down into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slight delay - it's been a long week! Thank you so much to everyone who has left feedback so far, it's a really good motivation to keep going. 
> 
> Also, if you'd like to follow me on tumblr you can find me at berlobi-source.


	4. Chapter 4

Nairobi has never believed in Karma, but when she gets sick a week after her fight with Berlin, she feels like she had it coming. It’s what she deserves for the way she took her anger and confusion out on him for no good reason. 

The past week of him ignoring her has been hell. It’s not like she’s desperate for his attention, per se, but as the heist draws closer and tensions rise, seeing a dark and unfeeling expression on the person that she used to look to for relief is difficult. She wants to be able to resume their knowing glances across the dinner table. She wants him to cup her ass with a firm hand as they’re gathered around to watch as the Professor explains how to set up the Browning machine gun, feeling the excited thrill that they might get caught. 

She tells Helsinki to pass on the message to the Professor that she’s sick and won’t be in class today, and inevitably, the Professor shows up in her doorway with a glass of water and a look of concern. With only three weeks left to go until the heist, a member of his band getting sick is the very last thing that he needs. She almost feels guilty for being the one to throw a spanner in the works, even if she’d give anything not to feel so dreadful. 

When he takes her temperature with the back of his hand, she realised that, aside from when she was drunk with Tokyo, the Professor is the only person other than Berlin who’s touched her in months. He tells her she doesn’t have a temperature, and she wants to yell at him that it’s bull shit because she feels like she’s dying. Instead she does something stupid. 

If you asked Nairobi why she tries to seduce the professor, she wouldn’t have an answer. Part of her wants to prove a point: that there was nothing special about what her and Berlin were doing. Anybody that’s been cooped up in this house for months would be desperate for sex. It’s a natural desire. It’s awkward and uncomfortable when she puts her hand on his tie, and she feels sorry for him because he’s clearly hating it too. She wants him to fuck her, to fuck away the memory of Berlin’s lips on her skin. To leave a hickey on her neck, telling Berlin that she doesn’t need him anymore. 

When he says no, she’s relieved. 

He eventually leaves her room, telling her to get some rest, which she does, trying not to think about the embarrassment of throwing herself at him when he’d been so sweet to tell her about his childhood. 

Later that evening, she wakes up from her nap and feels like her body is on fire. She’s sweating and shivering, and her whole body aches. Her throat is dry and she’s struggling to breathe. Even the mere thought of going to get a glass of water makes her want to cry, but it’s not like she has any other options. 

With shaky steps, she stands up from her bed, takes the empty glass from her bedside table, and heads downstairs. She has no idea what time it is, but she can tell that it’s very late as there appears to be no lights on. She practically has to use the furniture to hold herself up as she makes her way to the kitchen, feeling weaker with each step.

As fate would have it, when she reaches the kitchen, she sees Berlin sitting at the counter top, nursing a glass of wine and staring out of the window. 

“I assumed you were Moscow, trudging through the halls like that,” he laughs, throwing her a pitiful glance. 

Her breathing is laboured and she doesn’t have the energy to speak to him right now, let alone argue.

“Don’t suppose you picked up any painkillers on our trip to the pharmacy?” she manages, leaning against the wall for support. 

The expression on his face changes in an instant. “What’s wrong?” He gets up and crosses the room to stand in front of her. “You’re sick?”

She nods softly, and he takes the empty glass from her hand to fill it up with water. 

“You look like shit.”

She scoffs with all the energy she can manage. “Charming.”

“I mean it, you need to go back to bed. I’ll get the Professor.”

She puts her hand on his arm to stop him. “It’s the middle of the night, and he won’t be able to do anything for me anyways.” She sees him looking at where her hand touches his forearm, and pulls it away quickly. “Just leave it, Berlin.”

As she turns to leave the kitchen, she feels a tingling sensation pass over her body, and almost definitely would’ve fallen to the floor if Berlin’s strong arm around her waist wouldn’t have caught her. Water sloshes out of the glass and hits the floor as she accepts defeat and leans against his chest. She ignores the way that breathing in his scent feels so familiar. 

“I’ve never known a woman be in so much of a hurry to get away from me that she almost passes out,” he jokes. She laughs in disbelief, because she can definitely imagine why that would happen to him, then a violent coughing fit takes her by surprise. 

She drinks some water and pulls away from him, trying again to make it up the stairs on her own, but after a few steps he takes her by the elbow. Her eyes widen and she looks over at him. “Would you relax?” he snaps, “or are you too proud to accept help from someone you find so repulsive?”

His words confuse her, as they seem to come from a place of genuine hurt. It’s so oddly specific. She doesn’t want to get into this right now, all she needs is to be in her bed, so she shakes her head sheepishly, accepting his help up the stairs. He holds her upright as they walk to her bed, then gently helps her lay down. 

Berlin presses the back of his hand against her forehead. “You’re burning up.”

She chuckles weakly. “I’m freezing.”

He covers her with two blankets up to her chin and she can barely keep her eyes open as he leaves her room. Nairobi has no sense of time passing as she lays there, praying for this feeling to go away. She doesn’t see him return, just feels the cool damp cloth that he places on her forehead. 

“You don’t have to do this, Berlin.”

“Sit up,” he tells her. She groans in response. “Sit up, you need to take a pill.”

When she ignores him, he wraps his arm around her shoulders and helps her up. He places the pill into her hand and she brings it to her mouth, then reaches for the water. Once she’s done, she slouches towards him, resting her hand on his chest as he lowers her back down to the pillow. 

“You really don’t have to do this,” she tries to tell him again. He shushes her and covers her with the blanket once more. It makes her feel more cared for than she has done in a very long time. 

“I know I don’t.”

“Then why are you?”

He sighs deeply and his gaze softens, then reaches out his hand and rests it on her arm over the blankets, looking more unsure than she has ever seen him. “Nairobi, despite how often you chose to question my intentions, not everything I do is sinister. I’ve never been out to get you. I’ve never hurt you, or at least, I’ve never tried to. So it wouldn’t kill you to, just this once, let me treat you like a human being without questioning me for it?”

Tears threaten to spill from her eyes as she tries to comprehend what he’s saying to her, but the moment he’s finished, he stands up from where he’s sat on the edge of her bed and flicks off the bedside lamp. “Try to get some sleep,” he tells her as he moves to leave. 

“Wait,” she stops him, and stares at her, waiting for her to go on. 

“I’m cold.” 

Berlin sighs deeply and shuts his eyes. He glances towards the door and she can see the turmoil in his eyes. After a moment, he nods once, then crosses to the other side of the bed. She turns to face him as he takes off his suit and folds it over the back of her chair. Her breath catches when he slips beneath the covers.

“Turn around,” he tells her, so she does. 

Once she’s settled on the pillow, she feels him move up behind her and curl his arm around her waist. She can feel his warm breath on the back of her neck. Even though her body is aching, shivering and sweating, he holds her tightly against his chest. Her eyes grow heavy as she relaxes into his warmth. Berlin moves his thumb in small circular patterns where it rests on the back of her hand. 

“Berlin,” she whispers into the dark, but he doesn’t respond, simply continues with the soothing touches on her skin. Part of her wants to ask him why he’s doing this - to turn around and force him to tell her. But she’s powerless to do anything other than succumb to sleep in his embrace. 

-x- 

In the morning when she wakes up, the right side of the bed is cold. 

Part of her questions whether he was even there at all, but then she sees the cloth on her nightstand and remembers him holding it against her forehead as violent shakes overcame her body. She’s disappointed that he left before she woke up, but not surprised. If their track record has taught her anything, it’s that lazy mornings in bed together is not something that they do. 

Feeling somewhat better, Nairobi drags herself out of bed to get dressed. As she does, she thinks about how she’d seen a completely different side to Berlin last night. He’d gone out of his way to take care of her. Climbed into her bed for no other reason than to hold her. 

“I’ve never been out to get you. I’ve never hurt you.”

Berlin’s words from the previous night ring in her ears and in that instant, she relives every moment with him simultaneously. The way she’d held onto his waist during their trip to the pharmacy. His gentle caresses that had somehow made their way into their rough sex. The time that Helsinki had almost walked in on them in the shower together and he’d shushed her with a finger against her lips, then laughed - really laughed. The times she’d caught him staring at her, and he hadn’t looked away even when he knew he’d been caught. 

She’s not sure if it’s the remnants of her illness, or the force of her realisation, but Nairobi feels as though the room is spinning. Realising you’ve spent a long time being wrong about something is never usually a pleasant experience, but she can’t fight the grin tugging at her lips. Sure, he may present himself as pretentious and self obsessed, but it’s just a front. He’s not that person - not really. Or, if he is that person, there’s another side to him. A side that Nairobi has spent months staring at without even realising. 

A knock at her door startles her, and her face lights up. She rushes to open it, ready to throw caution to the wind, take all her pent up optimism and tell Berlin that finally she knows what she wants from him. But when she opens the door, it’s not Berlin that she sees. 

“You don’t need to look so disappointed,” Tokyo jokes. 

Nairobi laughs and steps aside so that Tokyo can come in. “What up?”

“Well, the Professor has been pacing outside for the past hour because he thinks you’re sick, but you look fine to me.”

Nairobi groans and flops back down onto her bed. “I am sick, or, I was sick. I’m better now.”

Tokyo lays down beside her and smirks. “What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing. I’m not smiling,” Nairobi grins back. 

“You didn’t happen to get a visit from a doctor last night, did you? Did somebody drop by to give you a check up?” 

Nairobi erupts into a fit of laughter and curls into Tokyo’s side. “Stop it, it hurts to laugh.”

Once the laughter dies down, Tokyo’s gaze shifts and she drops to a lower, almost concerned tone. “Rio saw him leave your room this morning.”

For a moment, Nairobi can’t react, because she can’t believe he actually stayed all night. She feels butterflies in her stomach like a lovesick schoolgirl.

“You fucked him?”

“No,” Nairobi tells her quickly. “I really was sick, he came to help me.”

“And that took all night?” she asks sceptically.

“He slept here. I didn’t fuck him,” Nairobi tells her, which, although it’s the truth, Tokyo clearly does not believe. 

Tokyo sighs and takes Nairobi’s hand in hers. “Be careful,” she warns. 

Nairobi nods. There’s no way that she’d be able to convince somebody like Tokyo that Berlin is actually an alright guy, beneath the many, many layers of bullshit. She practically despises him, that much is clear. She can’t stand his authority, and Nairobi can sense a conflict in the Mint from a mile away. There’s no point in defending him to her, she’ll only make herself look weak in Tokyo’s eyes. 

“Thank you,” she says sincerely. Even if Tokyo is wrong, Nairobi still appreciates that her friend is looking out for her. 

Tokyo sighs and sits up, then offers Nairobi her hand to help her up too. “Come on, you’d better come and show the Professor that you’re alive before he starts self harming.”

To Nairobi’s disappointment, when they join the others at breakfast, she sees that Berlin’s usual seat is empty. It’s very unusual, since he makes a point of being the first person to get up in the mornings. She’d hated it at first, assuming he only did it to show off, or show that he was better than everyone else. But then one morning she’d woken up earlier than usual and joined him for coffee. They’d sat on the front doorstep and watched the sun rise through the light morning fog. In that moment, she’d understood why a person would choose to do it every day. 

She makes light conversation with the others over breakfast, and thanks the Professor when he tells her that it’s good to see that she is looking better. Truthfully, she still isn’t feeling great, but her temperature has come down significantly and it no longer aches to breathe. 

When they make their way upstairs for the morning class, Nairobi’s eyes are drawn towards Berlin’s empty desk. She exchanges a glance with Tokyo, who shrugs, then they both look at the Professor. 

“Berlin is out collecting something for the heist, he’ll be back this evening,” he tells them by way of explanation. 

She’s disappointed that he didn’t take her with him, but considering all of the times he’d taken her on various errands over the past few months, she supposes that he can’t risk the Professor noticing a pattern. With a sigh, she relaxes back into her seat to listen to the Professor teach. 

Today they’re going over the details of the floor plan of the building. Every entrance and exit. Every window. Every potential hiding place. It’s a very content heavy session and she’s not sure if it’s because of that or her residual illness, but her head feels like it might explode. Nevertheless, she concentrates and tries her best to stay focused. With the heist so close she can almost taste it, now is not the time to drop the ball. 

By dinner time, Nairobi really begins to notice Berlin’s absence, and it isn’t just because of what had happened the night before. What she misses is his flirtatious glances, or his fingertips ghosting over her when nobody is watching. Over dinner, she feels the urge to strike up idle conversation with him about the day's classes, or listen as he tells her about the winery he intends to buy, with the large oak casks and sprawling vineyards. 

Later that evening, when dinner is over and Berlin has not returned, she still thinks about that vineyard. They both have such wildly different intentions with how they plan to live their lives after the heist, so she wonders if it’s possible that they will make time for one another. She tries not to dwell however, as Nairobi has never been a person to spend her time consumed with fear about things that might never happen. 

She’s a chronic optimist, and truly believes that if something is meant to be, it will be. Maybe, from the moment they part ways, her and Berlin will never meet again. Or maybe, they will meet every year in a different city for a wild and passionate love affair, only to retreat back to the comfort of their own lives once it’s done. Maybe they’ll travel together, and make the world their own. 

Whatever happens, Nairobi knows it will be a love story for the ages. 

-x-

It’s after midnight, and Nairobi can’t sleep. She’s restless, pacing back and forth in her room trying to decide what she wants to say to Berlin, or if she even wants to say anything at all. Something had changed last night. The metaphorical fog had been lifted. Deep in her heart, she knows that she’s been feeling this change between them happening for a long time, thinking that if she ignored it then it wouldn’t matter. But it does matter - he matters - and no matter the consequences, this isn’t something she can ignore any longer. 

Just as Nairobi is about to call it a night and get into bed, she hears the familiar sound of the car pulling into the driveway. With a grin, she checks herself in the mirror, runs her fingers through her hair, then picks up the empty glass from the bedside table and heads downstairs. 

She reaches the bottom of the stairs at the same time Berlin pushes open the front, carrying a very large box in his hands. “Oh, hey,” she says somewhat awkwardly, “I was just um- getting some water.” She holds up the glass in her hand for emphasis. 

He throws her a knowing smile, indicating that he doesn’t believe that she just happened to walk down the stairs right as he arrived back at the house. She blushes and smirks back bashfully. “What’s that?” she asks, pointing to the box, hoping to move the conversation forwards. 

“I’m very glad you asked. Come with me,” he tells her, then takes the box to the kitchen where he sets it down on the dining table. She watches with curiosity as he takes a knife from the block and uses it to cut through the packing tape. He hands her the knife, which she rests on the counter top, then goes back to his side as he unfolds the box’s lid. 

Inside, she isn’t quite sure what she sees. There’s something - or, lots of somethings - wrapped in thin bags. “What am I looking at exactly?”

Berlin tears open the plastic and takes out one of the items to hold it up for her. “My dear, you’re looking at the resistance.”

In his hand there is a large, caricature style mask, which she recognises the image of Salvador Dali, as the Professor had described to them in class. The mask that in less than three weeks time will be their shield from the world as they attempt to pull off the largest heist in history. Seeing the mask right in front of her is exhilarating. It makes it feel so much more real. 

“May I?” she asks, as she holds out her hand to take the mask from him. He nods and hands it to her, then takes out another from the box. They put on their masks and turn to face one another. She feels the power behind the symbol as she looks to Berlin and sees an illustration staring back at her. She imagines the hostages in the Mint fearing for their lives as they stare at this image. She imagines the negotiator for the police slamming her fist on the desk in frustration as she stares at this image. 

She imagines the people of Spain on the edge of their seats as they stare at this image in anticipation for twelve long days. 

She really is looking at the resistance. 

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she shakes her head with a laugh. “What do you think?” she asks, posing with her hands on her hips. 

“You look like a woman who is about to become 2.4 billion euros richer,” he tells her as he removes his own mask and sets it down. He takes a step closer and hooks his forefinger under the chin of her mask, lifting it from her face. He drops his voice to a low tone and moves his face close to hers. “But I think you look much better without it.”

Nairobi can feel her heart pounding and her breath quicken as their eyes lock. Ordinarily, they're almost the same height, but since he is still in his shoes and she has bare feet, she has to tilt her head up slightly to look at him. The expression on his face is unreadable. His eyes drop to her lips.

She is seconds away from leaning upwards to close the gap between them when they hear the kitchen door opening and jump apart from one another quickly. 

“Berlin,” the Professor greets as he enters the room in his blue pyjamas, clearly oblivious to the moment he had just interrupted, “I thought I’d heard the car in the driveway.”

Nairobi feels practically giddy from her almost-kiss with Berlin and she knows it must be reflected on her face. “Look Professor, aren’t they brilliant?” she says, excitedly holding up one of the masks to show him, hoping he takes it as an explanation for the energy in the room. 

The Professor takes one of the masks from the box and nods meaningfully at Berlin, in a way that Nairobi cannot decipher. A smile crosses his face and he nods in satisfaction as he turns the mask over in his hands. She can see a myriad of emotions flicker over his face and she understands each of them. Gently, she places her hand on his arm and nods at him, communicating that as best as she can. 

With an excited laugh, she takes the mask from him and puts it over his face, then fixes her own and encourages Berlin to do the same. When the three of them look between each other, they start to laugh harder. “God, doesn’t it all seem so real now?”

Berlin and the Professor nod in agreement, then the three hear the kitchen door open once more and see Rio and Tokyo walk in. Tokyo is wearing Rio’s t-shirt and Rio is wearing only shorts. The pair clearly aren’t expecting there to be anyone in the kitchen as they step away from each other with a look of embarrassment, but their look of surprise is replaced by confusion as they look between the group. 

“Are we having a party?” Rio jokes, smiling and moving to the table to pick up a mask for himself. Nairobi nudges Tokyo playfully as she hands her a mask too. 

“I see you splashed out for the good quality ones, Professor,” Rio says from beneath the mask as he adjusts the placement of the elastic. 

The Professor takes off his own mask and puts it back down on the table, “we really should get some sleep,” he warns. 

Berlin laughs and shakes his head, patting the Professor on the shoulder and gesturing to the room. “Look around, Professor, this moment is history in the making. The start of the resistance. Don’t you want to live a little?”

Before the Professor can say no, as Nairobi expects him to, Rio is turning on the radio and Tokyo is grabbing wine and glasses from the cupboards. Before long, they’re laughing and dancing and drinking, enjoying what feels like a significant turning point for them. 

Eventually, the others, hearing the music, make their way out of bed to join them in the kitchen. At the sight of the whole team together admiring the masks and laughing in giddy anticipation for the rapidly approaching heist, the Professor seems to overlook his wishes for everyone to get a good night's sleep.

As Nairobi dances excitedly with Tokyo, Rio, Denver and Helsinki, she catches Berlin’s eye and her breath hitches at the thought of the moment they’d almost shared. But there would be time for that to resume later, for now, they are a group. Unified and delighted. 

-x- 

By 2am, the Professor had excused himself to go back to bed, and both Oslo and Moscow had begun to look as though they may leave too, but the remainder of the group are still sitting around the dining table, drinking and chatting merrily. Having drank two glasses of wine, Nairobi feels a pleasant warmth, but is nowhere close to being drunk. She rocks her chair back and forth on two of its legs as she listens to Denver and Rio animatedly discuss the pros and cons of various sports cars that they’re planning on buying with their money from the heist. 

Nairobi feels a strange sensation, as though she is being watched. She looks across the table and sees Berlin’s gaze locked on her intently. Her cheeks burn with a gentle blush and she smiles, causing him to smile back. He glances around the table briefly, then looks back to her and gives her a flirtatious wink, which makes her breath catch in her throat. She quickly disguises it as a cough. 

Berlin drains the remainder of the wine in his glass in a single sip, then sets the glass down on the table and stands up. “Goodnight, ladies and gents,” he nods to the group, his eye contact with Nairobi lingers for longer than with the rest. Tokyo sticks her tongue out at him playfully and calls him a boring old man, but he leaves regardless. 

Suddenly, Nairobi feels incredibly restless. His message for her to join him was unmistakable, but she can’t jump up to follow him whilst remaining inconspicuous. So, she waits it out, trying to determine the right moment to get up and leave. 

Around 15 minutes later, when Helsinki tells the group that he’s going back to bed, Nairobi practically falls over herself rushing to get up from her chair and says that it’s time for her to go to bed too. 

“Come on Nairobi,” Denver pleads, standing up and throwing his arm around her shoulders, “the night is young.”

She laughs and shakes her head, refraining from yelling at him that if she isn’t upstairs with Berlin in under a minute she might spontaneously combust. “Maybe some other time.”

“If you saw how sick Nairobi was yesterday I don’t think you would be standing so close to her,” Tokyo tells him, causing him to pull his arm away quickly. Tokyo winks at Nairobi as she does. From the foot of the stairs, Nairobi mouths a quick thank you to Tokyo, who nods her head in acknowledgement. 

She reaches the top of the stairs in record time, then tiptoes quickly past her own bedroom and down to the other end of the corridor, then stands outside of Belin’s door for a moment before entering. She takes a deep breath and feels her heart pounding in her ears, terrified that somehow she’s gotten all of this wrong. But then she squeezes her eyes shut, nods to herself, and puts her hand on the doorknob. 

She doesn’t knock, but she pushes the door open slowly, giving him the chance to tell her to leave if he wants to. When she sees him, he’s sitting in the high backed armchair by his window. He isn’t reading, as he usually is. He’s waiting. Quickly, she shuts the door behind her. Her mouth goes dry as she takes a step further into the room, unsure of what to do next. 

Berlin stands from his chair and meets her halfway, in the centre of the room at the foot of the bed. He takes both her hands in his and pulls her towards him gently, so that their bodies are touching. Nairobi closes her eyes and rests her forehead against his. Their breathing is heavy as they hold the moment for as long as they can. His fingertips are delicate as their curl around hers, and she can feel her heart pounding in her ears. 

“Berlin,” she whispers, eyes still shut. 

She feels him nod. 

“I need to know,” she starts, her voice hushed and shaky. “Before we do this I need to know. Is this real?” She squeezes his hands. “Do you um- do you have feelings for me?”

He lets go of both of her hands and momentarily she panics, only to then feel him cupping her cheeks. She opens her eyes to look at him and he tilts her head slightly so that their eyes lock. He looks at her with so much desire, it feels like she’s staring into the sun. One of his thumbs brushes her cheekbone gently, and for the first time, she can see every tiny detail of his face. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. The hints of grey hair at his temples. 

“I would burn cities to the ground for you,” he whispers, and her chest tightens. She blinks back her tears and nods her head. When she opens her mouth to speak, he shushes her so that he can continue. “Look into my eyes.”

She does. Staring back at her, she sees a man who has spent his life feeling everything so, so intensely. She sees loss and pain and love and fear and anger. How she could have ever, even for a moment, thought him incapable of emotions is astounding. 

“Do these look like the eyes of a monster?”

“No,” she answers honestly, bringing up her hand to stroke the hair at his temple. “No, they don’t.”

He closes his eyes and inhales deeply, then opens them and looks at her with so much gratitude that it breaks her heart. Then he goes on, “in the Mint, it isn’t going to be pretty. I’m going to do things that may cause you to question that answer.”

Nairobi laughs softly. “Berlin, we’re all going to be-”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s different. You’ll see.” He takes one of her hands and rests it over his heart, “but this,” he squeezes her hand, “this is the real me. Understand?”

She nods, telling him that she knows. 

“Promise me that if something happens, this is the man you will remember me as.”

“Nothing is going to-”

“Promise me.”

She closes her eyes and presses her forehead against his. “I promise. 

He pulls back to stroke her cheek gently, then leans in to close his lips over hers. 

The kiss was unlike any they’d shared before - and they had shared plenty. Instead of a fierce battle for dominance, they move in unison, conveying all of the pent up passion they feel for one another. So gentle, yet so full of meaning. Too much, and not enough. His hands stay on her face, cupping her head, holding her. She throws her own hands around his neck, desperate to pull him closer. 

After a moment, they part for air, pressing their foreheads together with their eyes still closed. She opens her eyes and pulls away slightly to look at him. He nods, telling her everything - he means what he said - this is real. She nods back, and they lean together to kiss once more. This time, it's different again. Quicker, and full of energy. Nairobi feels Berlin smiling against her lips, then bends to lift her off the ground. 

Her legs curl around his waist as he lowers her onto the bed, but unlike usual when they’ve been aggressive and rough, this time, he’s gentle. He peppers her jaw with soft kisses, trailing down her neck and behind her ear. When he teases her earlobe with his teeth, she moans and tightens her legs around him. 

His tender kisses continue over her collarbones and along the hem of her t-shirt. Nairobi feels goosebumps on her skin as she runs one hand through his hair. She moves to take off her t-shirt, but he replaces her hands with his own and slowly pulls the material over her head. Slowly, deliberately and carefully, he places open mouth kisses to the hollow of her throat, trailing down between her breasts and over her abdomen. He kisses every inch of her, exploring her skin. 

Berlin slips one hand behind her back to unclasp her bra, then helps her remove it. Once it is gone, his kisses continue across her chest. Meanwhile, his fingertips glide over her arms, her hips, the outside of her thigh - somehow it feels like his touch is everywhere at once. When he helps her out of her thin cotton shorts, his kisses lower to her legs, teasing her inner thighs as her breathing grows heavier. 

“Berlin, please,” she asks softly, bucking her hips as he kisses along the waistband of her underwear. He looks up at her with a smirk, and one of his hands finds hers to intertwine their fingers. Then, he kisses her core through the material of her panties. She can feel the warmth of his tongue, but it’s not enough. She practically wines, rocking her hips upwards as his kisses continue. 

He looks up at her as he slides her underwear past her hips and off her body. “Aphrodite would tremble in your presence, my darling.”

She blushes at the ridiculous line that somehow only he can pull off smoothly. When his mouth at last makes contact with her clit, she feels electrified. He laps and sucks and nips at her whilst her breathing quickens. One hand tangles in his hair and the other hand grips his fingers. Before too long, she reaches her orgasm, moaning his name. He continues to kiss her inner thigh as she comes down from her high, then moves up the bed to hover over her.

“I want you,” Nairobi tells him as she leans in for another kiss, but she isn’t just talking about sex. She wants all of him. Whatever happens, she needs him. 

Berlin takes off his jacket as Nairobi unfastens the buttons of his shirt, and the remainder of his clothes follow soon after. Then he sits up so that he is kneeling in the centre of the bed, and pulls her into his lap. Their faces are millimetres apart as she sinks down onto him and they moan into each other's mouths. Once he is inside of her she pauses, holding the moment, staring into his eyes for as long as she can bare. 

She rocks back and forth, slowly at first, then builds the pace gradually. Their hands cling to one another - hers around his shoulders, his around her waist. He maintains eye contact as he slips his hand between their bodies to press his fingers against her clit. Profanities mixed with Berlin’s name fall from her lips like a mantra. The only words that have any meaning to her at this moment. As she comes, she buries her face in his neck and he holds her tightly. She hears his groans and feels him clutch her as he comes too. 

With ragged breaths, they lay back down on the bed, and Berlin pulls Nairobi against his chest, wrapping both of his arms around her. She can hear his heart beating rapidly as she lays her head on his chest. 

“Stay?” Berlin asks after a moment. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was intended to be the last chapter of this fic, but after reading all of the wonderful comments I have decided to keep it going throughout their time in the Mint (and possibly afterwards if that is something people would be interested in too?)
> 
> As usual, feedback is greatly appreciated and you can find me on tumblr at berlobi-source!


	5. Chapter 5

The morning after Nairobi confronts Berlin on his feelings, she wakes up in his bed alone. It takes her a moment as her eyes adjust to the light for her to realise that she is in the wrong bedroom, but when she does, she’s confused about why his side of the bed is cold. 

The first light of day is just beginning to peek through the curtains, so she can tell that it’s still early. Briefly, she’s concerned that he wants to take back what he had said the night before and doesn’t know how to say it to her face, but that doesn’t make sense for two reasons. Firstly, Berlin does not strike her as the type of person to say anything that he doesn’t truly mean. Even in everyday conversation, he’s careful with his words and doesn’t make mistakes. 

But secondly, and more compellingly, he isn’t afraid to upset anybody. If he wanted to tell her he’d changed his mind he would do it directly and to her face. He wouldn’t fuck around. 

Even with that realisation, it takes Nairobi a few minutes to pluck up the courage to get out of bed. When she does, she pulls on her discarded pyjamas from the floor and tiptoes across the room. She opens the door and looks both ways before making the quick dash to her own bedroom. Luckily, nobody else seems to be awake yet. 

Back in her own bedroom, she considers climbing back into bed for another hour until class starts, but decides that since she’s awake already she might as well get a head start on the day. She dresses quickly, picks out a selection of mismatched jewellery and heads downstairs. 

As she reaches the bottom step, she pauses when she hears two voices talking in hushed tones. 

“You need to stop worrying about this right now. Focus on the heist.” She recognises Berlin’s voice. 

“I am plenty focused and I think I am well within my rights to be concerned.” The Professor speaks back to him in an over familiar tone that she has never heard him use before. 

“There’s nothing to be concerned about, Sergio.”

Suddenly, Nairobi understands that she is intruding on something very private. She’s just overheard the Professor’s name. His real name. But not only that, she’s discovered that the Professor and Berlin have some kind of bond that goes way beyond this heist. And what’s more, she’s now aware that there’s something about Berlin that the Professor is concerned about - very concerned, from the sound of it. 

She tries to turn around slowly to head back up the stairs, but she makes abrupt contact with someone behind her. 

“Watch it there, sleepy head,” Denver teases, far too chipper for this time of day.

“Shit, sorry man I was just-” she fumbles for an apology, trying to navigate her way around him to go back to her bedroom.

“Just getting ready to make me one of those fancy coffees that I’ve seen you make for Berlin? That’s what I thought,” he jokes with her, laughing before he bends down to pick her up and hoist her over his shoulder and carry her down the stairs. 

Denver likes to do this type of thing all the time. In fact, him picking her up off the ground has become an almost daily occurrence at this stage. Whether it’s in celebration after their team wins at football, or as a prank to make her jump, or just plain horsing around, it’s something that usually makes her laugh. But today, he doesn’t seem to have picked up on the tension in the air and her reluctance to interrupt the moment going on downstairs. 

“Put me down, you’re such an asshole,” she laughs, struggling to get out of his grip. “Do not take me to the kitchen I will beat your ass I swear to God,” she warns, but seemingly it’s too late as he is already pushing open the kitchen door. 

“Hey, Nairobi volunteered to make everyone those fancy coffees, isn’t that great?” he jokes, clearly unable to read the tension in the room. He sets her down and nudges her side playfully before crossing over to the professor and tapping him on the back to say good morning. 

Nairobi tries to look at Berlin, but he won't meet her eye. 

Before she has a chance to dwell, Moscow has followed them into the kitchen and Denver is dragging her by the wrist to the kitchen counter. She can’t give any indication that she overhead Berlin and the Professor, so she plays along, laughing and joking with Denver as she shows him how to grind the coffee and foam the milk like they do in cafes. It’s all goodnatured and playful, of course, but when she glances over and sees Berlin sitting with a face like thunder she can’t help but feel guilty. 

“Sugar?” Nairobi asks as she hands Denver and Moscow their coffees.

“No way, baby, I’m sweet enough,” Denver smirks, then winks flirtatiously. She scoffs and rolls her eyes as she picks up her own coffee to bring it to the table.

Gradually, the other members of the house trail one by one into the kitchen for breakfast and the Professor leaves to set up the classroom for the day. When Helsinki arrives, he seems to be in a particularly chipper mood, as he ruffles Nairobi’s hair as he walks past. 

“Good morning, my love,” he tells her, jokingly mimicking the phrase that she uses so often. She laughs and nudges him in the stomach. 

As she turns to ask how he slept, she hears the harsh sound of a chair scraping on the floor behind her, and quickly turns back just in time to watch Berlin leave without a word. 

-x-

The morning is spent doing one of the most boring tasks that Nairobi thinks she has ever done. The Professor provides each member of the team with a list of the equipment that they will be using inside of the mint for them to check over and make additions to. For Nairobi, the list includes everything from a spare magnifying eye loupe to her underwear size. The Professor reminds the group of the seriousness of this task, as, of course, once they are in the Mint they will not have access to anything that they’ve forgotten to mention. He walks up and down the space between the desks like an exam invigilator keeping a watchful eye on his rambunctious students. 

Due to the silence and near constant monitoring, Nairobi does not have to glance over at Berlin anywhere near as often as she usually does. She doesn't see him look over at her once. And though she tries to keep her mind focused on the task at hand, she can’t help but think back to the conversation she’d overheard in the morning and his behaviour ever since. Something is wrong with Berlin. 

By lunch, the overwhelming desire for her to grab him by the collar and demand to know what the fuck is happening bubbles far too close to the surface. Not even the calming afternoon breeze can keep her from gritting her teeth as he clenches his fists and stares off into the distance. As it turns out, however, the impending outburst of rage comes from him, not her. But surprisingly, Moscow is the one he yells at. 

One moment, the Professor is explaining something to the group as Moscow wanders back over to the lunch table from the house, and the next, Berlin is yelling at him for going to the bathroom in the middle of the day. It’s ridiculous, and completely uncalled for. Nairobi sees right through it. He doesn’t give a damn about how Moscow shits - he just wants to shout at somebody. 

The Professor manages to smooth over the tension and resume the previous conversation, but no more than ten minutes pass before Berlin throws back the wine in his glass like it’s water and gets up to leave. Nairobi follows him shortly afterwards. 

She barely has the door to his bedroom open before she’s yelling at him. 

“Are you going to tell me what the fuck that was about?”

He’s sitting in the chair by the window and, though he does not turn to face her, Nairobi can tell that he’s breathing deeply and pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Why did you go off on Moscow like that?”

He turns slightly and looks her up and down. “Would you like to discuss at length why I find Moscow's bowel movements so repulsive?”

“No, I want you to tell me what the hell is wrong with you, and why you’re taking it out on Moscow.”

That wipes the smug, condescending look off his face. For a moment, a look of fear flickers across his face. Or something akin to fear. The look is gone before she can understand it fully, but either way, she knows he’s holding something back. Then, he gets up from his chair so that he’s standing at her level. 

“Maybe you could start by telling me why Denver's hands were all over you this morning.”

Nairobi laughs and shakes her head in disbelief, partly because she knows there's a deeper issue here and that this is just something he’s using to distract her, but also because of course he’s the type to be territorial. “You’re jealous?”

“Jealousy is for children,” he snaps back. 

“Then what is it?”

He steps closer to her so that they’re toe to toe and drops his voice to a low, dark, almost sinister whisper. “Because you’re mine, Nairobi.” He brushes her hair off her shoulder and she feels a chill run down her spine. “I don’t want any hands on your body that aren’t mine.” He leans in close to her ear and kisses the skin below it softly. “Do you understand?”

She tries to pull away but one of his arms curls around her, pinning her to him. 

“You don’t own me, Berlin. I’m not a possession.”

“I don’t share,” he reiterates, kissing her neck. Her eyes flutter shut as she melts into his kisses and a soft smile tugs at her lips.

“Nobody is asking you to sha-” the words die on her lips as he sucks at the sensitive spot above her collarbone and she sucks in a sharp breath.His kisses continue over her exposed skin and his hands grip her closer to him as he walks them back towards the chair. When he sits down he pulls her into his lap and he can't resist the urge to grind against him as he leaves hickeys on her neck. 

“Tell me you’re mine,” he whispers as he brings up one hand to caress her inner thigh. “Tell me.”

In that moment, she forgets about her issue with his possessiveness. She forgets that he’s done a very good job of distracting her from the reason they were fighting in the first place. All she can say is, “I’m yours.”

-x-

Three weeks pass in the blink of an eye. Nairobi gets no closer to finding out what’s wrong with Berlin and why his tolerance for other people seems to have diminished to almost zero. Every time she attempts to bring it up, they either fight or they fuck, or some combination of the two. 

She knows what he’s doing. There’s something that he very desperately does not want her to find out. Really, it’s not like she can blame him, since she’s never volunteered any information about her son, or much about her life before the heist at all for that matter. It’s not that she doesn’t trust him, she just doesn’t want to ruin the little bubble that they’ve come to exist in, where the only thing that matters any more is the heist. 

When she’s with Berlin, real life can wait, because she knows that realistically her real life after the heist will not include him, but she wants to spend disbelief for as long as possible. 

So, she understands why he would want to keep something personal about himself from her, but the reason that it plays on Nairobi’s mind so frequently is that something in her gut tells her that really, he wants her to know. 

There are moments when she sees his resolve crumble and she can sense that he’s about to come clean with whatever has been bothering him for all this time. His eyes betray him. They’re so deep and rich and full of emotions. But then he’ll push that look back down, deep inside of himself, and she can tell he’s changed his mind. 

“I don’t want to live on an island.”

They lay side by side in Nairobi’s bedroom. Berlin on his back, staring up at the ceiling, Nairobi on her side facing him. A thin blanket covers them from the waist down. As she traces idle patterns on his chest with her fingertips, she can feel the tightness of every one of his muscles. Tense with anticipation. 

He smiles slightly, but doesn’t look at her. “You need to get some sleep, Nairobi.”

She sighs as her fingertips trace his collarbones. “Neither of us are going to sleep tonight and you know it.”

“You have to try.”

She nods, but doesn't shut her eyes. Neither does he. 

They lay there like that in silence for a little while longer. Waiting for time to tick by. His hand is shaking again. He probably thinks she hasn’t noticed. It’s the hand on the other side of this body, covered slightly by the blanket, but the tremors are unmistakable.

The first time she’d noticed it had been as they laid in bed together after they’d made their feelings for each other known. She’d thought that maybe he was nervous about how their relationship would change, but even that had seemed implausible, since Berlin had never struck her as a person who would worry about that. Like all thieves, he’s an optimist. Once she’d noticed his tremor the first time, however, she’d found herself wondering how she’d been so oblivious to it before. 

Nairobi had started to notice the way the wine sloshed back and forth if he held his glass for too long. The way he would grip his fist with his other hand to stop the shakes. Sometimes he would rest beside her with his hand on her stomach, and she would feel the steady vibrations on her skin. She’s never dared to ask him about it, since she’s convinced its a manifestation of all of the tension he holds inside himself that’s begging to be released. 

After a few moments he sighs and covers her hand on his chest with his own, giving it a gentle squeeze. “What’s wrong with islands, hmm? You don’t like the beach?”

She smiles at his acceptance that they aren’t going to sleep any time soon and moves closer to him, curling into his side. “I love the beach, but I also love people. I want to see the world - every continent. I don’t want to spend my days walking up and down the same patch of sand.” 

Berlin nods softly as he strokes his fingertips up and down her forearm. “Continue,” he prompts. 

So, she does. She tells him about all the cities she wants to see. About how she wants to fly a helicopter, and drive a jeep around a safari to see exotic animals, and replace all of her rings with solid gold ones. Most of it is just outlandish fantasies, but anything to keep their minds off the fact that in five short hours, the most intense, dangerous and fucking crazy twelve days of their lives will begin. 

She leaves out the part of the plan that involves finding her son, because somehow, even though three weeks have passed since they made their feelings for one another known, they manage to skirt around personal questions. She doesn’t know where he grew up, or what happened to any of his wives, or how he became involved with this heist in the first place. He doesn’t know about her son.

They don’t know each other’s real names. 

“We could go to Nairobi,” she says without thinking.

“We?”

She freezes. They haven’t spoken about what will happen between them after the heist. Nairobi isn’t even entirely sure that a life with him is what she wants - and she knows that it can’t be what he wants. But somehow, when she pictures herself stepping into the city of Nairobi for the first time, he is by her side. 

“I meant, um-”

He takes her hand in his and brings it to his lips, then kisses her knuckles gently, and somehow she understands that to mean she doesn’t have to explain. For that, she is grateful. 

They lay in silence for a while after that, but it isn’t uncomfortable. Nairobi’s thoughts are running wild with the excitement and anticipation and fear, and she’s sure that Berlin’s are the same. The only thing that keeps her grounded in the moment is the rhythm of his breathing and the steady beat of his heart beneath her palm. As the time passes, she’s consciously aware of the fact that they’re wasting what will be their last chance to get some real sleep for a long time, but every time she shuts her eyes, a vague sense of dread sets in.

She feels her eyes starting to burn with fatigue when he shifts on the mattress so that he is laying on his side facing her. He strokes her cheek gently, then continues the feather light touch past her neck, over her shoulder, and down the length of her body. When he reaches the blanket at her waist, he pulls it up to her chin, tucking her in like a child. 

“The moment we’re on the other side of that tunnel - when the heist is over - I’m going to tell you my name, and you’re going to decide if you want to come with me.”

She scans his face, unable to detect any sign that he’s joking. He’s using the softer tone of voice that he reserves for moments like this. 

“What about you? When are you going to decide if you want me to go with you?”

He smiles, but his eyes hold so much sadness that it breaks her heart and she doesn’t know why. 

“I’ve already decided.”

-x- 

Nairobi didn’t plan to fall asleep, but somehow it must’ve happened as she finds herself being gently shaken awake by Berlin. As her eyes adjust to the dim light from the window, she sees that he’s standing beside the bed dressed in his suit, lent over with his hand on her shoulder. She sits up with a start and he rubs his hand soothingly down her arm. 

“I need to go, it’s almost time for the others to wake up,” he tells her in a hushed tone. 

Dazed, she rubs the sleep from her eyes and nods. He leans down and kisses her on the forehead, but as he turns to leave she grabs him by the wrist and quickly stands up out of bed. Their eyes lock for a moment then she pulls him in for a kiss with as much passion as she can muster. His arms grip her body, holding her close to him. 

When the kiss is over she rests her forehead against his. “Showtime.”

He nods in agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys. So sorry for the delay in updating! I had massive writers block as I had only planned for this to be a four part fic, but now that I've worked out the rest of the story I ought to be able to keep up with more frequent/ regular updates. I hope this chapter is worth the wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to let me know what you think - feedback is everything!


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